The Never Ending Washing Pile!

I just had to do a post about laundry! The more mothers I speak to, regardless of how many children they have - laundry is a common problem!
It's never ending, even if you do manage to get an empty wash basket you can guarantee it won't stay empty for long!
Then there's the folding, ironing (if you do that - I don't lol) and putting away - it is the one job that every family has to do - unless you are rich enough to have servants and I have spent some time looking at other people's routines and techniques and thought I'd share a little about how we attempt the laundry!

We have recently changed our system and instead of all clean clothes going in one big bag until putting away time (which resulted in children routing through the bag looking for clothes) we invested in 6 folding crates - one for each of us (one for me and hubby to share) which makes life so much easier especially when we don't have time to put away and the children need to find clean clothes ;-)

As for keeping up with the washing well I try to put a load on every night and empty the washer and refill it in the morning - making 2 loads a day but we often have days where I just don't manage it and then we try to do 3 or 4 to catch up. Or we have a tidy up which creates lots of extra washing!

I also try to get the children involved - when things are running smoothly I will have one loading the machine and another emptying it - all the children (except the youngest 2) are expected to put their own washing away though that is something we have to work on - finding a regular time.

Do you have any good tips or techniques for laundry? Please do share them - I love to hear more ideas and learn how to do improve my own techniques.